How to Sell Cloud Computing

Thinking About Selling Cloud?

If you’re not selling cloud services, don’t be afraid, it’s the same thing you’ve been selling to your customers; it’s just delivered a different way and with more potential margin.

What changes is that you move your focus away from features and functions to strategic business issues. You’re going to up-level your customer relationships beyond the IT department. You’re going to work with executives to understand about where they’re business is going and how you’re going to help them get there.

Cloud is going to make you more strategic less tactical. And you know that strategists are paid much better than tacticians. That’s one way you can get more margin.

We surveyed one hundred and eighty of your colleagues to find out about what they needed to know to be successful selling cloud. In addition we conducted nineteen in-depth telephone interviews to discover their attitudes and requirements. What I write about here is the result of that research.

The market is expecting strong growth through the next few years, reaching $149 billion worldwide in 2012 with half of that being in the US. Gartner predicts that in the next few years, 20 percent of companies will own no IT assets other end-user access devices, 35 percent of the US midmarket will buy cloud computing and IT utility services, and 40 percent of enterprises will blend cloud with on premises applications. Do you want a piece of that market? I bet you do!

So if you’re considering selling cloud, ask yourself these questions.

Are your customers asking about using cloud today?

Do your customers have complaints about their current IT services?

Do you supply services or want to supply services to your customers?

Are you willing to adjust your business model?

If you’ve answered yes to these questions, decide that it’s time to get into the cloud and stay tuned to learn how.